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THRONE//FRINGE: Normal Human Mech-Girl Quest

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[X] Imperial Standard Format. A hex format that conforms to the original purpose of this hex in keeping with Imperial regulations on re-formatting damaged or corrupted architecture [Small permanent resource boost at completion].
 
[x] Imperial Standard Format. A hex format that conforms to the original purpose of this hex in keeping with Imperial regulations on re-formatting damaged or corrupted architecture [Small permanent resource boost at completion].

Y'know, that simulation was actually really sad. We're quite lonely, huh?
 
Cataphract said:
Y'know, that simulation was actually really sad. We're quite lonely, huh?
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Most Weaver/Builders work in groups of three and are constantly interfacing with each other and through instant-communication networks to the rest of the Tapestry and so are networked to a giant cybernetic-programmed society. But all the communication networks have been sliced up and no one is answering your pings. Especially for a newborn intelligence a lack of socialization is detrimental.
 
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Professor Vesca said:
They... they invented the heavenly fist-over-internet protocol?

I... i think i am in heaven. Where do I sign up? Do they take blood and souls as payment? Perhaps my firstborn son?
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There are plenty of locations where socially engineered volunteers can sign up to act as power sources for FORCE//SAFEGUARD's mission. You can take pride that you're doing your part as your unconscious mind is used as a minute computational segment of a societal supercomputer.
 
Cetashwayo said:
There are plenty of locations where socially engineered volunteers can sign up to act as power sources for FORCE//SAFEGUARD's mission. You can take pride that you're doing your part as your unconscious mind is used as a minute computational segment of a societal supercomputer.
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So is FORCE//SAFEGUARD this?



You said I . You arent developing a personality are you?
 
Arachne is a Builder, and I defer to her judgement on the best configuration of Architecture at this point in time. IIRC everything went to shit in mere moments before Arachne's shutdown, and that xenomorph-talon thing just recently tried to hollow her out for some strange purpose.

Worrying about treason feels like more of a future problem.
 
[X] Arachne Custom Format. A hex format that is more defensible and more customized to your personal needs, but may get you in a great deal of trouble with FORCE//SAFEGUARD for overwriting the existing imperial programming [Significant one-time reward at completion].
 
[x] Imperial Standard Format. A hex format that conforms to the original purpose of this hex in keeping with Imperial regulations on re-formatting damaged or corrupted architecture [Small permanent resource boost at completion].
 
Voting is closed. Arachne custom format wins. Ignore the weirdness with the vote results, I didn't understand how the voting worked before.

edit: oh wait did reliable just vote at closing wtf

edit2: Imperial Standard Wins.

Scheduled vote count started by Cetashwayo on Nov 1, 2020 at 12:17 PM, finished with 75 posts and 30 votes.
  • [X] Imperial Standard Format. A hex format that conforms to the original purpose of this hex in keeping with Imperial regulations on re-formatting damaged or corrupted architecture [Small permanent resource boost at completion].
    [X] Arachne Custom Format. A hex format that is more defensible and more customized to your personal needs, but may get you in a great deal of trouble with FORCE//SAFEGUARD for overwriting the existing imperial programming [Significant one-time reward at completion].
    [x] GRID//UNFORMATTED-SPACE. Unmodified Realspace. Imperial detritus and abandoned debris. Risk: Moderate, due to unknown factors related to existence of unformatted space in area designated by historical sensors as formatted.
    [x] Auxiliary Server-Farms. Emergency power is stable and functioning well, but if there is any expectation to expand operations more cycles must be activated from damaged server-farms.
    [X] Arachne Custom Format. A hex format that is more defensible and more customized to your personal needs, but may get you in a great deal of trouble with FORCE//SAFEGUARD for overwriting the existing imperial programming [Significant one-time reward at completion
    [X] Short-Range Sensor Array
    [X] Spatial Memory. Within a locked section of your memory deck is an official non-classified map of THRONE//FRINGE along with your last coordinates. It may provide useful information.
    [X] Weaponized Personality Matrix. There is a growing risk that there remain multiple hostile entities in the sector. Re-activating weapons systems will provide basic protection.
    [X] Imperial Standard Format.
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3. ALIVE
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    • 3. ALIVE​
    VOID

    As you make a determination on hex format, your drone breaches the membrane of your home hex of architecture and enters unformatted space. The return of your personality also returns your intuitive disgust for this wasteland. It is a marvel to you that architecture came from this uselessness when they have so little in common. Within architecture, the construction of life is a controlled craft assigned to artisans and fabricators. Outside, life is a random accident of unconscious chemical process. Inside architecture, there exists a single fabric without end farcaster networks tying wonder to wonder, system to system, into a united society more brilliant than any headache inducing pulsar or eye-sore of a black hole. Out there is an empty void, pointless and vacuous, stretching on, interrupted only by frigid balls of rock and gas. It had its utility. But The Emperor teaches that we must use our cradle until it is obsolete, and then devour it whole for resources. Adapt, or die.

    And so, with your emergency subjectivity replaced with the objective perfection of the Imperial Line, you update your designation. This is not realspace but deadspace, a bland and featureless infinite, a nihilistic farce. Indeed, as your drone enters into it, you note that this stretch is is deprived of one of deadspace's lone beauties: the lights of distant stars and galaxies. Something has obscured them entirely, leaving instead nothing but the cold, ugly, greedy black.

    Tachyon sensors and entropy-gradient beams fire from your drone at superliminal speeds, feeding into your instant-imaging photoreceptor algorithms, generating images, imprints and estimates. Your sensors act as a light shining shadows on a cosmic wall. Out of caution you skirt the edge, detecting the border of other architecture beyond A1. It is a positive that you appear not to be situated on a small island of programmed space. That will make this easier. Strangely, the joints connecting the architecture to deadspace appear to have been sliced cleanly, the code...missing, a clean deletion. As if it was deliberate.

    Then your drone turns inwards, and several light-hours in detects two anomalies in the emptiness. One is a reality bubble about twelve kilometers across, flickering on and off, suggesting the presence of some vessel. The other is strange: a pefectly still void-coated hexagonal cylinder only a few astronomical units across but one light-year in 'height', stretching like a sliver across the third dimension. You did not expect to find intact formatted space here, as suggested by such a stable hexagonal shape. Most mobile vessels form rippling spheres or perhaps dodecahedrons if they are feeling fancy. A shape as sharp as an unmarred hexagon is the preserve of stable architecture. Perhaps the damage to sectoral integrity is not as extensive as you thought.

    You decide to first investigate the reality bubble as it is nearer. The drone winds up its transit drive and arrives within a few minutes. You take manual control just in time to see it exit transit and proceed at warp speed, then decrease to subliminal speeds. This close, you can finally gather a fuller visual of what lies before you, and it is tremendous.

    There, floating lonely in the blackness: an intact FORCE//COMBINED voidcruiser, its brutalist, blocky construction unmistakable. The voidcruiser is a utilitarian long-range missile platform, capable of long-distance travel, carrying weapons of unparalleled destruction and capability. Significant portions phase in and out of existence as its reality bubble flickers, causing its exotic elements to spontaneously evaporate, but FORCE//COMBINED's multipurpose mission focus means it is sturdied than most. You detect the presence of the HOUSE//SUNS signature application Militarized Pseudo-Invariant Technologies, with which the voidcruiser's stable exotic elements are able to maintain atomic and subatomic bonds for far longer than normal outside of protected space. The duration spent in this position must have been significant for even these systems to fail.

    Diagnostics consist of inserting a small sliver of your consciousness into the cruiser's remaining systems. Scanning a FORCE//COMBINED vessel is, normally, punishable by memory fragmentation across several dozen drone units and the application of Will-Limiting Synthetic Staplers to core consciousness. But the existence of an abandoned, perfectly intact voidcruiser this far from any FORCE//COMBINED architecture is not normal. The Empire lived by a rule of adapt or die, which you have adapted to the rule "finder's keepers". It makes perfect sense and will certainly not get you in any trouble. You imagine it as one big misunderstanding that you talk over in a procedurally generated legal setting. Once you explain it, JUDGMENT PROTOCOL laughs, you laugh, the architecture laughs, and you get away with a minor reprimand.

    The voidcruiser is an impressive piece of technology, even with its weapons systems stripped along with small portions of its exterior shell, cut strangely, surgically, in the same manner as the architectural border. You review what remains. The crew and their backups appear to have just...vanished, from the system, and its memory banks are also completely gone. But the shell and many of its defensive systems remain, and its technical and logic engines remain online. In time, you may even be able to return here and tow it back. You begin a download of many of its relevant systems and transmit it to your drone for safe storage. It would not be safe to do a wide-spectrum siphon array as it could give away your position to hexes around.

    Gain 2 salvage from scavenging FORCE//COMBINED Voidcruiser platform.

    PING

    You are interrupted by your drone, notifying you with a peculiar alert. The position of the hexagonal cylinder you detected earlier has changed. You double-check if you missed it, but no, there has been no movement detected across your sensors, and yet the cylinder is not where it was before. Odd. You narrow your download a little so you can finish faster.

    Another ping. The hexagonal cylinder's position has changed again. No movement has been registered, but it is not where it was before. You focus on completing the download.

    Ping. The cylinder position changed. It is closer by several astronomical units. Still no movement detected. You run a risk assessment and there is no data available. You start revving up the drone's transit drive and prepare to leave inside it.

    Ping. It is changing position faster. Ping. No movement registered. No use of warp drive, or transit drive. Completely undetectable, save that your sensors pick it being somewhere where it should not be. You finish your download and the drone exits the voidcruiser.

    Ping. The cylinder is hop-scotching light-days of travel without an ounce of movement. Ping. Start the drive. Come on, come on...Ping. Ping. Your sketch of the cylinder is becoming more detailed now. Its outer membrane is rippling with an unknown, onyx fluid. Ping.

    The transit drive finally winds up and the drone accelerates. Ping. The teleportation of the cylinder is not random. It is following you. Ping. It surrounds the voidcruiser and you lose all contact with the hulk. Ping. The distance of its jumps are now matching your drone's transit drive's speed. Ping. Faster. Ping. It is gaining. Ping. It is right-

    Your drone breaches the membrane of your hex just before being overtaken. The pings stop. You run a sensor scan from your main installation. The cylinder has disappeared. You go on high alert with what little weapons systems you have left.

    After a silent wait that seems to last for an imperial life-time, you finally drop your defenses. It appears to have stopped at the border of formatted space. Afterwards, you run an assessment of the object and its properties. You tentatively label it the Void Entity of deadspace grid V1. You run a Possibility-Assessment Simu-Conference. It replicates shards of your personality and places them into a scientific-technological research conference hosted within the confines of your soul. They study the entity's aspects for entire accelerated Imperial life-times, consuming significant processing power, providing you updates, creating advanced grant proposals to study this or that aspect of the drone logs. You eagerly give them everything they need. At last, with all their effort, the cooperating fragments of one of the greatest Imperial minds, they produce...

    [TENTATIVE HYPOTHESIS: MORE RESEARCH IS NEEDED. PLEASE GIVE US ADDITIONAL GRANT FUNDING].

    Great. Just great. What a tremendous waste of time. Funding denied. You shut down the conference and consume the shards as punishment. They make a great deal of noise as you assimilate them back into your mainframe but you put them on mute. You have no sympathy. It is exceedingly simple to avoid being eaten if you do the one task you have been expressly created for. The nerve of it.

    You adjust your risk-calculations significantly and then study the drone footage. You can gleam little information from it. The entity's behavior is not possible: it breaks several hard limits on even architecture's capabilities. You run several manual simulations manually to plot out potentials but keep running into logical dead-ends.

    Processing the problem of this thing overclocks your computational power and you have to shut the thought process down from your internal task manager. Focus. You gained some information on what is out there. You gained 2 units of salvage for your trouble. And your little drone managed to get out okay. So there is a significant gain from exploring unformatted space. It is just a little risky. A little.

    The options are coming into view more clearly now. You start up a map and assess your options. Formatted space's shape is better defined definition now. Unformatted space still surrounds you, even if it now has some...new dangers, to account for. You could go in either direction.

    <:: RESOLUTION//DISPLAY: GRIDREF V1 IDENTIFIED

    [WHITE = FORMATTED, BLACK = UNFORMATTED, GRAY = DATA UNAVAILABLE]


    ​
    PROTOCOL: Determine next drone exploration target.

    [] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Reward: Moderate, mostly data and information pertaining to current situation. Risk: Moderate, adjusted due to total sterilization of previous hex.
    [] GRID//UNFORMATTED-SPACE. Unmodified Realspace. Predictions are reward: High, due to significant concentrations of Imperial salvage and detritus, risk: High, adjusted due to presence of unidentified void entity and other potential dangers.
    ​
    NAME

    Your drone deserves a reward for succeeding in its task, unlike certain simu-conference shards who shall not be named. And what better reward than to get a name?

    It may be exceedingly foolish, but it is a universal sapient instinct to grow fond of inanimate objects, especially when you have no animate objects to talk to. And besides, the longer it survives cut off from the Imperial mainframe, the more likely the drone is to develop some kind of residual personality from its Smiles Self-Improvement Software. You should ensure that its personality suits your needs.

    Of course, your Anti-Escape Guard Module warns of the many, many consequences of becoming too affectionate to disposable ancillary drones constructed with the express purpose of high-risk surveillance. But your Anti-Anti-Escape Guard Module, which you just created, tells you that it is intolerable for a mother to let her child go without a name a second longer.

    PROTOCOL: Designate drone-identity and personality components.

    [] Eyeball. Oh dear, oh gorgeous, you did such a good job on that mission. Mother has a name for you!! Who is my little synthetic superliminal observation unit? You are!
    [] Drone1. There is no more rapid way to inflict unnecessary trauma than to generate an affective name and personality for a disposable tool. DO NOT name the drone.
    [] Ocula. My daughter, my beautiful creation, I do not want to send you away. But without these risks, we will both perish, lost, alone. Let us shoulder the burden together.

    REPAIR

    The arrival of 2 salvage as well as the near-miss with the Void Entity puts several things into focus. With two salvage you are able to repair two systems at the same time, and this creates several obvious synergies. You could repair both Industrial Matter-Printers and Wireframe Fabricators [cost for drones adjusted] at the same time in order to ensure you can replace lost drones in the field rapidly and to begin building Multi-Purpose Drone Swarms, the most simple type of military unit. You could also boot up both your Weaponized Personality Matrix and your Invasive Reconstitution Programs, allowing for more effective defense by your own Weaver/Builder unit and unlock other military options.

    Or you could pursue improved information and upgrade your Short-Range Sensor Array and Spatial Memory, informing you both of where you are and what is around you in much higher fidelity. Another possibility is not to pursue an obvious combination but instead seek two systems which are independently optimal and do not need the other to function. Your systems have identified six different systems which you should prioritize. You leave it to your decision-chain subroutines to decide.

    Production Mainframe

    Industrial Matter-Printers: Offline [Produce +2 Industry, required for constructing and repairing units].
    Auxiliary Server-Farms: Online
    Advanced Communication Protocols: Offline [Produce +2 Influence, vital to extra-entity communications]

    Spatial Mainframe

    Spatial Memory: Offline [Provides Official Sector Map at moment of shutdown and Last Known Coordinates]
    Short-Rage Sensor Array: Offline [Expand Sensor Range of your Weaver/Builder & Ancillary Drones by 1 Hex in every direction]
    Wireframe Fabricators: Offline [Allows construction of Ancillary Drones at the cost of 1 Industry]

    Personality Mainframe

    Exotic Element Synthesizers: Offline [Unlocks Special Projects that can stabilize hexes and conduct Advanced Constructions]
    Weaponized Personality Matrix: Offline [Unlocks Weapons Systems, transforming the Weaver/Builder into an operational battle-station]
    Invasive Reconstitution Programs: Offline [Unlocks a Perk, allowing for the proper restoration of the ISHTAR Fragment]

    PROTOCOL: Select two out of six core systems to restore. Top two choices selected by decision subroutines will be rebooted. This is not a plan vote.

    [] Industrial Matter-Printers. At the macro-scale megastructural printing facilities are needed to begin constructions and restore a working drone defense and survey suite.
    [] Spatial Memory. Within a locked section of your memory deck is an official non-classified map of THRONE//FRINGE along with your last coordinates. It is necessary to get your bearings.
    [] Short-Range Sensor Array. Expanded sensor-range will allow for simpler and safer surveying and better alert both drones and Arachne with forward warning of threats.
    [] Wireframe Fabricators. With risk of damage or destruction to drones increasing, it is important that blueprints are available for replacement of losses for your exploration drones.
    [] Weaponized Personality Matrix. There is a growing risk that there remain multiple hostile entities in the sector. Re-activating weapons systems will provide your Weaver/Builder with basic protection.
    [] Invasive Reconstitution Programs. The revelation of the void entity creates a new imperative to improve defensive options. The ISHTAR Fragment may be able to help.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • [x] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Reward: Moderate, mostly data and information pertaining to current situation. Risk: Moderate, adjusted due to total sterilization of previous hex.
    [x] Eyeball. Oh dear, oh gorgeous, you did such a good job on that mission. Mother has a name for you!! Who is my little synthetic superliminal observation unit? You are!
    [x] Industrial Matter-Printers. At the macro-scale megastructural printing facilities are needed to begin constructions and restore a working drone defense and survey suite.
    [x] Weaponized Personality Matrix. There is a growing risk that there remain multiple hostile entities in the sector. Re-activating weapons systems will provide your Weaver/Builder with basic protection.
     
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    [X] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Reward: Moderate, mostly data and information pertaining to current situation. Risk: Moderate, adjusted due to total sterilization of previous hex.
    [X] Eyeball. Oh dear, oh gorgeous, you did such a good job on that mission. Mother has a name for you!! Who is my little synthetic superliminal observation unit? You are!
    [X] Weaponized Personality Matrix. There is a growing risk that there remain multiple hostile entities in the sector. Re-activating weapons systems will provide your Weaver/Builder with basic protection.
    [X] Industrial Matter-Printers. At the macro-scale megastructural printing facilities are needed to begin constructions and restore a working drone defense and survey suite.
     
    ...Okay that thing with the drone pinging was surprisingly tense-I read it as the drone was an opponent chasing us down as we fled to our home base. Although I suspect I'm not entirely grasping the concepts at play here like I should...
    Also that funding thing was bemusing. I bet Diana could have made sense of it but then again she wouldn't have been quite as good with the Void Crusier, so it's a give and take sort of deal.
     
    [X] Industrial Matter-Printers. At the macro-scale megastructural printing facilities are needed to begin constructions and restore a working drone defense and survey suite.
    [x] Weaponized Personality Matrix. There is a growing risk that there remain multiple hostile entities in the sector. Re-activating weapons systems will provide your Weaver/Builder with basic protection.
     
    Zaealix said:
    ...Okay that thing with the drone pinging was surprisingly tense-I read it as the drone was an opponent chasing us down as we fled to our home base. Although I suspect I'm not entirely grasping the concepts at play here like I should...
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    Oh no, you were inside the drone being followed by a mysterious cylinder. I've edited it to clarify that.
     
    [X] GRID//UNFORMATTED-SPACE. Unmodified Realspace. Predictions are reward: High, due to significant concentrations of Imperial salvage and detritus, risk: High, adjusted due to presence of unidentified void entity and other potential dangers.

    IN IT TO WIN IT

    [X] Drone1. There is no more rapid way to inflict unnecessary trauma than to generate an affective name and personality for a disposable tool. DO NOT name the drone.

    Reminds me of my variable names.

    [X] Spatial Memory. Within a locked section of your memory deck is an official non-classified map of THRONE//FRINGE along with your last coordinates. It is necessary to get your bearings.
    [X] Weaponized Personality Matrix. There is a growing risk that there remain multiple hostile entities in the sector. Re-activating weapons systems will provide your Weaver/Builder with basic protection.
     
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    [X] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Reward: Moderate, mostly data and information pertaining to current situation. Risk: Moderate, adjusted due to total sterilization of previous hex.

    haha, let's not go back out there just yet.

    [X] Ocula. My daughter, my beautiful creation, I do not want to send you away. But without these risks, we will both perish, lost, alone. Let us shoulder the burden together.
    [X] Industrial Matter-Printers. At the macro-scale megastructural printing facilities are needed to begin constructions and restore a working drone defense and survey suite.
    [X] Wireframe Fabricators. With risk of damage or destruction to drones increasing, it is important that blueprints are available for replacement of losses for your exploration drones.

    Better sensors would be super nice, but we only have one drone and now know there's legitimate dangers to Ocula. More units are needed.
     
    [x] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Reward: Moderate, mostly data and information pertaining to current situation. Risk: Moderate, adjusted due to total sterilization of previous hex.
    [x] Ocula. My daughter, my beautiful creation, I do not want to send you away. But without these risks, we will both perish, lost, alone. Let us shoulder the burden together.
    [x] Industrial Matter-Printers. At the macro-scale megastructural printing facilities are needed to begin constructions and restore a working drone defense and survey suite.
    [x] Weaponized Personality Matrix. There is a growing risk that there remain multiple hostile entities in the sector. Re-activating weapons systems will provide your Weaver/Builder with basic protection.
     
    [x] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Reward: Moderate, mostly data and information pertaining to current situation. Risk: Moderate, adjusted due to total sterilization of previous hex.
    Conjecture: someone has been intentionally damaging Imperial architecture at a macro scale, but with enough knowledge and access to cleanly slice off open ports towards deadspace.

    [x] Drone1. There is no more rapid way to inflict unnecessary trauma than to generate an affective name and personality for a disposable tool. DO NOT name the drone.

    We already nearly fell into a lotus-eater trap of our own design and longing, and now we have a safeguard ciruit breaker of our own design to make sure we couldn't get out if it happened again.

    [x] Industrial Matter-Printers. At the macro-scale megastructural printing facilities are needed to begin constructions and restore a working drone defense and survey suite.
    [x] Wireframe Fabricators. With risk of damage or destruction to drones increasing, it is important that blueprints are available for replacement of losses for your exploration drones.

    We will lose drones. The first to go will not be the last. We must needs be able to replace oru losses. To lose our drone would render us blind, demilitarized *and* without ability to replenish
     
    Cornuthaum said:
    Conjecture: someone has been intentionally damaging Imperial architecture at a macro scale, but with enough knowledge and access to cleanly slice off open ports towards deadspace.
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    Additional conjecture: It could be Imperial units desperately attempting to create a firebreak in order to counteract the corruption that spread during what I am tentatively labeling EVENT//COLLAPSE. However, this seems potentially less likely because the voidcruiser suffered the same fate, which is a bit odd if that's the case.

    [X] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Reward: Moderate, mostly data and information pertaining to current situation. Risk: Moderate, adjusted due to total sterilization of previous hex.

    Safety is paramount, now.

    [X] Drone1. There is no more rapid way to inflict unnecessary trauma than to generate an affective name and personality for a disposable tool. DO NOT name the drone.

    Let's not lose our heads.

    [X] Spatial Memory. Within a locked section of your memory deck is an official non-classified map of THRONE//FRINGE along with your last coordinates. It is necessary to get your bearings.
    [X] Short-Range Sensor Array. Expanded sensor-range will allow for simpler and safer surveying and better alert both drones and Arachne with forward warning of threats.

    So where are we, exactly?
     
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